Toyota axes cult favourite

Toyota has sunk its flagship sports car in Australia.

The Japanese brand will stop taking orders of the GR Supra from this month, and the current generation will be discontinued.

More than 1400 Supras have found a home in the six years it was on sale Down Under, which appears isn’t enough to justify its spot in the brand’s local line-up.

The current version brought the iconic nameplate back from the dead, as a rear-wheel drive sports coupe co-developed with BMW. The car was always more BMW than Toyota with the German brand’s 3.0-litre 285kW/500Nm inline six-cylinder engine and eight-speed auto combo at its core.

Toyota Australia recently invested a chunk to compete in the Australian Supercars Championship from next year with the Supra. It said the current car will form the basis of that race car in its inaugural season and beyond.

The company also said the GR Supra name will live on.

Japanese outlet, Best Car, has previously reported the next-gen Supra would drop a pair of cylinders and its BMW roots.

It points to a hybrid-powered sports coupe to help it live on in the electrified age, with a reveal mooted for 2027.

Toyota’s multi-pathway workshop in 2024 previewed some of the company’s future engines, including a potent petrol-electric combo that would be ideal for a future Supra.

The 2.0-litre turbo hybrid is believed to produce 294kW and 500Nm, an uplift over the current Supra’s 285kW/500Nm outputs. 

Expect it to be teamed with a parallel hybrid system, similar to the one seen in Toyota’s i-Force Max hybrids sold in North America. 

Instead of a separate location, the electric motor is positioned between the engine and eight- or potentially 10-speed automatic transmission, meaning the new Supra should be able to run on petrol-power alone with real gear shifts. 

Best Car has given us a glimpse of what the next-gen Supra could look like with some sharply styled digital renders.